OSTRALE BIENNALE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART O21: BREATHTURN
Dresden, July 1st– October 3rd 2021
Main venue: Robotron Kantine
Supporting venues/ Partner institutions: Stadtentwässerung Dresden, Bautzner Straße Memorial, Deutsches Hygiene–Museum, OSTRALE.basis in Übigau, Kulturpalast Dresden
Curators: Loose Associations (Nataša Bodrožić, Ivana Meštrov), Patricija Gilyte (Kaunas 2022), Krisztian Kukla (Art Quarter Budapest)
Production and coordination: OSTRALE- Center for Contemporary Art, Dresden
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In the rivers north the future
I cast the net (Paul Celan)
The OSTRALE Biennale in Dresden is the third largest international exhibition of contemporary art in Germany, which took place every year from 2007 on during the summer months and was changed into a biennale in 2017. First the exhibitions have taken place at various venues of the former slaugtherhouse complex of Ostragehege in Dresden, as well as other similar post-industrial venues all over Europe.
The OSTRALE is planned to take place from July 1st until October 3 2021, if the epidemiological situation allows it. The exhibition will be presented for the first time in the very heart of Dresden, at the Robotron Canteen. The building is a witness of the Eastern Modernism („Ostmodern”) and an often overlooked part of the architectural and social history of the city of Dresden.
Supporting venues and partner institutions which will be hosting various biennale programs are Stadtentwässerung Dresden, Bautzner Straße Memorial Museum, OSTRALE.basis in Übigau, DHMD- Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Kulturpalast Dresden etc.
This year’s theme of the OSTRALE biennale has been defined through a complex polylogue between the curatorial team, artistic proposals and contextual emergencies. Through the international open call which tackled the topics of growth/ (de)growth, streams, currents, various ecological questions, more than a 1000 applications arrived from all around the world.
BREATHTURN, the theme and title of the central exhibition of this year’s biennial, refers to the anthological poetry collection by Paul Celan from 1967 (originally: ATEMWENDE), but articulating its own interpretative field. Questioning the dualistic distinction that modernity makes between nature and society, the exhibition explores (radical) forms of coexistence, looking at the way(s) we breathe together, as humans, with other species and organisms on earth, as well as with our complex environments. By testing the change in perspective, the relationships between the material conditioning of the Anthropocene, the digital imaginaries of the new affectivity, and the scenario of another end of the world, potentiated by current viral realities, are considered. At the same time, poetry and poetic references are not coincidences, not even Celan’s poems, “language grids”, woven from the fabric of enigmatic metaphors. By slowing down the established communication flows, activating the senses in the sphere of limited social communication, poetry becomes the very channel of speech, as “a clear expression of mixed feelings”.
Between disorientation and reorientation, due to the global pandemic shock, OSTRALE is an opportunity to think together and search for a new direction, while pointing out existing social conflicts, deviations, limitations and dead ends.
The 2021 edition of the OSTRALE Biennale presents more than 140 artists from 34 countries, Germany, Lithuania, Croatia, Hungary, Sweden, Serbia, Turkey, India, Northern Macedonia, Singapore, Italy, France, Togo, Netherlands, Russia, USA, Poland, Austria, China, Ukraine, Slovenia, Moldova, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Finland, Bangladesh, Luxembourg, Azerbaijan, Peru, Kosovo, Ireland, Norway, Switzerland, UK:
Nils Agdler & Timo Menke (SE), Emil Andersson (SE), Sanja Anđelković (RS), Katharina Andress (DE), Aleksas Andriuškevičius (LT), Aurelija Maknytė (LT), Seçkin Aydin (TR), Devadeep Bani Sarmah Gupta (IN), Gildo Bavčević (HR), Dávid Biró (HU), Bojan Mrđenović (HR), Jana Borsche (DE), Viktor Brim (DE), Janos Brückner (HU), Gaby Burckhardt (DE), Daniel Burkhardt (DE), Nadja Buttendorf (DE), Elena Chemerska (MK), Daniel Chong (SG), István Csákány (HU), Mauro Cuppone (IT), Márta Czene (HU), Etienne de France (FR), Abdoul-Ganiou Dermani (TG-DE), Tibor Dieters (NL), Alexei Dmitriev (RU), Katerina Duda (HR), Gabriele Engelhardt (DE), Lucy Cordes Engelman (US), Anna Fabricius (HU), Zsolt Ferenczy (HU), Mona Freudenreich (DE), Márk Fridvalszki (HU), Áron Galambos (HU), Nadia Galbiati (IT), Mindaugas Gapševičius (LT), Gabrielė Gervickaitė (LT), Bronė Sofija Gideikaitė (LT), Harald Gnade (DE), Goran Škofić (HR), Igor Grubić (HR), Michael Grudziecki (PL-DE), Marko Gutić Mižimakov (HR), László Győrffy (HU), Péter Tamás Halász (HU), Willem Harbers (NL), Michael Heindl (AT), Roland Hermanns (DE), Di Hu (CN), Ana Hušman (HR), doplgenger (Isidora Ilić & Boško Prostran, RS), Alexander Jakimenko (UA-DE), Yuki Jungesblut (DE), Nikita Kadan (UA), Eginhartz Kanter (DE), Anuschka Kilian-Buck (DE), Neža Knez (SI), Eugenijus Kolmogorcevas(LT), KOLXOZ (Maxim Polyakov, Anton Polyakov & Viktor Vejvoda, MD & CZ), Vikenti Komitski (BG), Endre Koronczi (HU), Volker Kreidler(DE), Áron Kútvölgyi-Szabó (HU), Marcus Lerviks (FI), Irma Leščinskaitė (LT), Glorija Lizde (HR), Larion Lozovoy (UA), Dean Maassen(DE), Éva Magyarósi (HU), Firoz Mahmud (BD), Casey McKee (US), Toni Meštrović (HR), studio ASYNCHROME (Marleen Leitner & Michael Schitnig, AT), Niko Mihaljević (HR), Péter Lichter (HU), Ivan Milenković (RS), Judit Lilla Molnár (HU), Sarvenaz Mostofey (IR), Petra Mrša (HR), Christoph & Sebastian Mügge (SE), Sali Muller (LU), Csaba Nemes (HU), Thomas Neumaier (DE), Klára Orosz (HU), Andrea Palašti (RS), Lav Paripović (HR), Predrag Pavić (HR), Julija Pociūtė (LT), Renata Poljak (HR), Ghenadie Popescu (MD), Marko Rodics (HU), Ivan Ramljak (HR), Farid Rasulov (AZ), Jens Rausch (DE), Melanie Richter (DE), Jana Rinchenbachová (CZ), Fátima Rodrigo (PE), Sandra Rosenstiel & Hanne Lange (DE), Nika Rukavina (HR), Neli Ružić (HR), Catherine Sanke (DE), Remis Ščerbauskas (LT), Philipp A. Schäfer (DE), Jan Sebesta (CZ), Driton Selmani (XK), Stipan Tadić (HR), Lana Stojićević (HR), Kamen Stoyanov (BU), Attila Szabó (HU), Ottó Szabó (HU), Eszter Szabó (HU), Zsuzsanna Szegedi-Varga (US), Kamilla Szij (HU), Hajnal Szolga (HU), József Szolnoki (HU), Casper ter Heerdt (NL), Ivana Tkalčić(HR), Laura Erika Urbanski (DE), Philipp Valenta (DE), Arturas Valiauga (LT), Daina Vanagaitė-Belžaikienė (LT), Vangjush Vellahu(AL), Xueying Wang (GB), Guido Weggenmann (DE), Anette Wörner (DE), xtro realm (HU), Dia Zékány (HU), Yinglin Zhou (CN), Die Zukunft – Students of the Art Academies of Dresden and Wrocław (Ida Sielska, Jarosław Słomski, Taina L. Bemmerlein & Veronika Pfaffinger, PL & DE)
For more information about OSTRALE biennale in English/ German, please see here> https://www.ostrale.de
Graphic cover: ŠKART for Loose Associations
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The OSTRALE O21 is part of the FLOWING CONNECTIONS project, funded with support from the European Commission through co-funding by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.
slobodne veze //loose associations 